


Open Heart

by verynotconcise



Category: The Maze Runner (Movies), The Maze Runner Series - All Media Types, The Maze Runner Series - James Dashner
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Multi, minor minho/teresa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-07
Updated: 2018-01-07
Packaged: 2019-03-01 16:20:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13298625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verynotconcise/pseuds/verynotconcise
Summary: Newt loses his phone on the train





	Open Heart

**Author's Note:**

> unbetaed.
> 
> under 2000 words challenge: failed.
> 
> title from the song Open Heart (lol surprise surprise) by Morgan Page which has been a recent favourite of mine. :"^)

Crowds. Fucking hate crowds, Newt thinks just as he’s shoved from behind by the man towering over him.

His colleague called in sick again, and one thing leading to another, his boss had begged him to extend his shift and okay, while he could have said no, but times were bad and Newt knew that his boss was thinking of letting some employees go. With student loans and rent and daily expenses, there was no way that he was going to let himself be one of those potential ex-employees.

And unfortunately, he had completely forgotten about his dinner with Minho and Teresa, which meant that he was running very late. Extremely late. And he was still stuck commuting by public transport.

His phone buzzes again, and Newt scrambles to type a text. No, Minho, he was still alive. Yes, yes, he’s on the way and not watching Netflix in his room. If Minho wasn’t his friend, Newt would have considered the amount of messages sent as borderline harassment.

As the train arrives at his stop, Newt quickly slides his phone into his back pocket, hollering an “Excuse me. Excuse me!” as he tries his best to squeeze through the crowd before the train doors close. He makes it out just as the doors shut tightly behind him, thank god.

By the time he arrives at the restaurant, he is late by a whole hour and greeted by a moody Minho and hungry Teresa.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Newt says in lieu of a greeting, slightly out of breath from the running. Minho scowls.

“You could’ve at least replied my text. I thought your phone died or something.”

“I replied to a lot of your text messages, Minho. You basically spammed the crap out of the poor thing.” Newt grumbles, reaching into his back pocket to show Minho just how many new notifications he received. And that’s when he feels it. Or the lack thereof. He pats the back of his jeans, starting to panic when all he felt was his own ass instead of hard plastic.

“Fuck. Fuck.” Newt hisses, throwing his head back and gripping his hair painfully.

“What is it?” Teresa asks worriedly.

“I think I dropped my phone in the train.”

 

  
The phone rings exactly four times before the other person answers.

“Hello?” a deep voice says, sounding slightly suspicious. There’s a thought at the back of his mind that he should be the suspicious one, that’s his bloody phone with someone else, for gods sake.

“Hello,” Newt says. He doesn’t realise how dry his throat has become while waiting for the call to be answered. He coughs once, trying to make it sound intentional, like someone getting another person’s attention, when he was really just trying to make his voice work properly again. “Hello. I am the owner of this phone.”

“Okay, well, I will need you to describe yourself for a bit. For all I know, you could be lying to me.”

Fuck, this guy is an idiot. “First of all, why else would I be calling this phone number? Second of all, how else would I know that this phone is lost?”

The line goes quiet, and finally, there’s a small “Oh. I suppose you have a point.” from the other side.

Well, the guy does sound semi-apologetic. And the fact that he wants to make sure that the phone reaches its owner safely makes Newt’s wince at how harsh he sounded, maybe it was a bit uncalled for. Newt pinches the bridge of his nose, shutting his eyes and taking in deep breaths. “Okay, I’m sorry. I had a bad day, and losing my phone was just the cherry on top.”

“It’s okay.” the voice chuckles, “I just realised how dumb I sounded.”

“Yeah. A bit.” Newt laughs weakly.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t contact you earlier. I saw your phone drop and by the time I had picked it up, you were already gone. And I didn’t know how else to call you, since your phone has a passcode.”

“No, I understand. Practically uncontactable. Right.”

“Yeah. I hope you’ve told your friend Minho about this. He really went off. Sent a lot of text messages to you.”

Newt groans, and Minho looks up from his food for the first time since their food arrived. Even Teresa is side-glancing at him. What did he say? She mouths at him. Newt raises a hand to let them know that everything is fine, but for now, please shut up.

“Yeah, I’m sorry about that.” Newt murmurs, “A bit of a nuisance, isn’t he?”

“Hey!” Minho says, reaching across the table trying to snatch his phone back. Newt doesn’t even know how Minho knew it was him they were talking about, but if the shoe fits. Newt holds Minho back with his free hand, shooting Teresa a pleading look. She frowns at Minho, clicking her tongue in disapproval.

“Minho! We’re in public.” she emphasises the last word, eyes narrowing dangerously at him. Minho sits back down with a glare.

There’s loud laughter from the other side, loud and breathy and not unpleasant to listen to at all.

“Yeah, yeah. Hey, so should I, uh, meet you soon to return your phone to you?”

“I mean, how else do you plan to return it to me?” And there’s laughter again, this time from the both of them.

“Okay, so, how does tomorrow sound?”

“Well, the earlier the better ain’t it?” the smile on his face grows. Minho looks incredulously at him, while Teresa raises a curious brow. “Alright. I’ll message you the details.”

“Alright. See you there.” then the line goes off. Newt begins typing a new message to his phone excitedly, not noticing the weird look Teresa and Minho exchange until he sends the message and looks up.

“What is it? Why are you guys looking at me like that?”

“That’s not fair. You were totally hogging my call time to flirt with some stranger over the phone.” Minho complains, leaning over the table to snatch his phone back. Teresa nods in agreement.

“Totally flirting. Was he that charming?”

“What? It wasn’t - that’s not. We were not flirting.” Newt says dismissively, picking up his fork and twirling some spaghetti around his fork. Teresa snorts.

“It’s not a bad thing, you know. It may even be a good thing. God knows that you need to get out there again.”

“Yeah, you’ve been in this funk for _ever_. It’s not fun when I have to spend Friday nights with you.”

Newt narrows his eyes at Minho. “You don’t. You bailed on me last week!”

“That was different, I was getting laid. Of course I would ignore your call.” Minho says defensively, cut off almost immediately by Teresa.

“Minho! We’re in _public_!”

“Okay, but the point still remains. Newt, you need to get out there and find someone.” Minho says, waving his spoon around the air as he talks. His expression softens when he sees how quiet Newt has become, twirling his pasta without much of an appetite. “I just think that you shouldn’t let one rotten apple taint your opinion about love, you know?.”

Teresa stills, silently poking her food.

“Things have been busy for me.” Newt says at last. His tone is final, he won’t talk about this anymore. Minho and Teresa share one last glance before they finally pick up the pieces of food they’ve been pushing around their plate for the last few minutes.

 

  
Newt spends the rest of the night thinking, because Teresa and Minho have a point. It has been ages since Newt has last dated anyone. It wasn’t something he avoided consciously, it’s just been a really busy period in his life and getting a relationship wasn’t even anywhere near the top of his priorities. Besides, after his last relationship ended on less than amicable terms, he wasn’t ready to put himself out there so soon. Even if it has been two years. Still not ready.

Or at least, that’s what he tells himself when he sits in the coffee shop across the road from his flat. At this point, he doesn’t know if it’s a defense mechanism for him so that he can brush off the hurt of getting rejected, or if he really is not ready to get into a new relationship.

Newt stirs his cup of iced coffee absentmindedly as he keeps a lookout for the guy carrying his phone. The guy had replied to his message on Minho’s phone, introducing himself as Thomas and informing Newt that he’d be wearing a blue long sleeved shirt for easy identification. And in reply, Newt had given him a brief description of himself as well. For some reason, the thought of exchanging photos never occurred to Newt, which brings him to where he is right now - perking up everytime the bell above the door chimes, deflating when it’s not a man in a blue shirt.

Newt nervously checks his watch. It’s five minutes past the arranged meeting time. Thomas wouldn’t lie to Newt about returning his phone, would he? Newt stirs his drink more aggressively, taking a long sip to calm his nerves.

But when five minutes turns to ten, and ten to fifteen, Newt begins to lose hope that he was ever going to get his phone back. That’ll teach him not to back up his data, and now it’s gone. For fucks sake.

When the minute hand strikes four, Newt sighs, disheartened. He finishes the last bit of his drink, which was mostly melted ice with a hint of coffee, as he throws his sweater over his arm and leaves with heavy footsteps. What a waste of time. What a disappointment. He’ll have to call his telco to cut his line when he reaches home, buy a new phone and make peace with losing all the important dates, photos and videos he had on that phone. Fuck Thomas.

He steps out of the coffee shop looking down at the floor when he feels someone catch his arm. He looks up. It’s a guy in a long sleeved blue colour shirt. It’s Thomas.

“Hey.” the guy says, slightly nervous, “I’m Thomas.”

Newt can only stare wordlessly, because for some reason the image of Thomas he conjured in his head was of a much older guy, possibly with stubble and a permanent frown on his face. But this guy in front of him - or rather, this brunette adonis in front him, caught him off guard. How had he not noticed someone this good looking on the train?

He must have been staring for a long time, because Thomas starts to frown as he lets go of Newt. “I’m sorry, I must have the wrong person.” he apologises quickly, starting to turn away. This time, it is Newt who grips onto Thomas’s arm.

“No, wait. You’re Thomas?”

“Yes, that’s me.” Thomas confirms. “Still Thomas.”

Newt blinks once, then twice, and then he laughs. Thomas furrows his brows.

“Is there something on my face?” he asks. Newt shakes his head.

“No, no. I’m sorry, It’s just - I thought you’d be older than you are. Your voice was really deep on the phone.”

“Does that disappoint you then? Should I come back and find you in a few years?” Thomas says, a smile forming on his face.

“You’re going to make me wait that long to retrieve my phone? Shame on you, Tommy.”

He has no idea where ‘Tommy’ came from, and as soon as it’s out of his mouth he starts to panic. Shit. Why did he say that?

But then Thomas laughs, and it’s a low and deep rumble, much like the one Newt heard over the phone and laughed along with. Just like that, his worry washes away as he finds himself laughing too.

Thomas takes Newt’s phone out of his pocket, and Newt takes it gingerly, staring at the black device like he can’t believe it’s there.

“Here you go. Be careful when you’re on the train, the next person who picks it up may not be as nice as I am.”

Newt rolls his eyes, trying to suppress another bout of laughter. “Thank you so much, Thomas. I really - just, thank you.”

“It’s no problem.”

“Can I get you a cup of coffee or something? My treat.”

Thomas looks at the time on his phone with a frown. “No, thank you. I have to get going. I’ve got class in a few.”

“Oh, okay.” Newt coughs, “Well, thank you again.”

Thomas smiles again before he begins to step away, “It’s not a problem. I’ll see you around if I see you around.”

As Newt watches Thomas’ back grow smaller as he walks away, something in Newt is screaming at him to chase Thomas, get his number, because it’s been a long time since he has genuinely enjoyed the company of a stranger, and he doesn’t mind spending more time with Thomas. That’s saying a lot for a guy who has always cut off invitations for dates with clipped replies.

So he runs.

“Thomas! Wait!”

Thomas turns around. “Is something wrong?” he asks worriedly.

“Yes. There is.” Newt nods, still out of breath. The crease between Thomas’s brows deepens.

“What is it?”

“I never asked if I could get your number.”

For a brief moment, when Thomas opens his mouth only to close it again, Newt tenses and gets ready to hear it. _Thank you, but I’m not interested._

Instead, what he hears is Thomas’ laughter. “Why didn’t you say so earlier?”

It’s stupid and inconsiderate of them to be laughing in the middle of a sidewalk the way that they are, and Newt would usually glare at pedestrians who do this, but in that moment, who cares about what others think of them.

Because for the first time in awhile, he thinks that he’s ready to try again.


End file.
